I Created a Magazine!

I Created a Magazine!

    At the start of this lesson, my viewpoint on magazines was that all they needed was a big title and a catchy phrase to catch people's attention to make them buy it, but I've learned there is a lot more to a magazine than just the big picture on display. Magazines have big, dramatic masthead at the top, bold main headlines, some coverlines sprinkled around, a barcode and date usually in a corner, and a banner or puff to make the magazine look more attractive.

    For our project, we were tasked to create our very own magazine from scratch using the conventions we had just learned. Now, the tricky part for me was that our cover image had to be original and of good quality.  I didn't want to use just any picture from my camera roll, so I opted to take a picture then and there using a professional camera provided to me by my teacher. I've never actually dealt with a professional camera, so it took some time getting used to, but after I was ready, to took my picture. I walked around the whole school searching for the perfect picture for a magazine. I went from trying to take pictures of butterflies to cars. Eventually, I took my final picture I would use which would be perfect for my genre I chose for my magazine, nature. I felt like my picture really displayed that genre do to the leaves and grass around the heart.

The original picture I took is below. (I never claimed to be a good photographer.)

    

    I made sure to use all the major magazine conventions so the cover would look like an actual magazine. The masthead gives it a strong identity, and the main headline is big enough to tell readers what this magazine will mainly be about. The other coverlines make the magazine look so real that it's actually filled with different content and information that is worth reading. Adding the barcode, dateline, and banner strip at the bottom made it look even more professional, just like something you would see in an airport or city shot.

    I definitely had some challenges along the way to creating this magazine. I faced challenges like learning how to work with 'Adobe Pro', the software we used to create the magazine. I had a tough time learning how to do basic things, like how to import text or how to change the color and size of the text. Resizing images was also a problem for me. I also had to experiment with different fonts and sizes so the text stood out without ruining the aesthetic of the picture. However, I was able to overcome these challenges with the help of tutorial videos and a lot of time experimenting and exploring the app. I am pretty proud of how the final product turned out. 

    Overall, this project showed me that creating something that looks simple at first actually takes a lot of planning and effort.  I’ll be able to use what I learned about the visual appeal and software tools to make a future magazine look cleaner and more professional. Now that I understand how magazine conventions work and how to navigate Adobe better, I feel much more prepared for future projects. Doing this let me experiment with whether I really want to do this for my portfolio, while also letting me see what it would be like.

The final outcome of my magazine.